Duty Of Care
by ohwonders
Summary: Will isn't the only one who worries too much, and at some point Nico's just going to have to accept that.
_If you recognise it, it's not mine._

* * *

Will Solace is a lost cause. It's _'are you sure you're eating enough?'_ here and _'you're still awfully thin'_ there. He's kind of gotten used to it, and after a serious conversation which ended in Will admitting that no, Nico wasn't dangerously underweight, it just couldn't hurt him to gain a few pounds, Nico had learnt to expect it as one of the trials of having a health nut for a boyfriend.

It's when other people start doing it that Nico kind of wishes they wouldn't.

He knows he isn't short, not anymore; he's almost exactly five ten if he ruffles his hair up a bit, and it does that anyway. He's no Frank, obviously, but then, nobody's Frank. Except Frank. And normally, Frank wouldn't dream of picking Nico up by the elbows and holding him there like he's some sort of doll, but he's kind of useless under peer pressure, and when a whole gang of slightly tipsy demigods think it'll be hilarious to see Nico hoisted in the air ("Look, he's wriggling!"), then he just ends up going with it.

"Frank," Nico says after thirty seconds of squirming and sending death glares at giggling friends, "put me down."

"Oh. Right. Sorry." Frank sets him down gently- at this point, he's basically the big guy from Mulan, the one which is basically a human teddy bear, who sings the line about swimming? Chien-Po, that's it. Nico might be slightly drunk too.

Anyway, Frank's basically the only sober person at this party (except Hazel, because she still can't drink yet and she's being ridiculously law-abiding and Frank's being a good boyfriend and sticking with her) and now he's looking at Nico with this worried expression which makes him look kind of like a sad bear.

"You're really light," he says after a second. "Like, really light. You weigh, like, the same as Hazel."

Nico shakes his head. "Nah," he says. "You're just used to hauling Dakota's drunk ass all over the place. Besides, Hazel's tiny. There's no way I weigh the same as her."

Frank still looks doubtful, but at that moment, Percy hollers something along the lines of "I can totally beat you in an arm wrestling match, Grace," and Jason yells something like "No way!" and Frank goes to break it up before something gets flooded like last time.

* * *

Percy's probably the worst, after Will, because not only does he still have some sort of guilt complex over what seems to include the entirety of his involvement in Nico's life, he also kind of understands exactly what's going on in his head at the deepest darkest bits of 2am.

It's not like they sit and chat about it like they're tourists who happened to go to the same place on holiday. They don't say stuff like "Did you manage to visit the Phlegethon while you were there?" and "No, it was overrun by monsters. The traffic was hell."

But somehow, whenever they're around and Nico has a bad night and sits alone at breakfast with coffee so bitter it stings the back of his throat, Percy knows, somehow, and he sits with him. He doesn't say anything besides casual comments on the weather or updates on how life's treating him and Annabeth, but he gives him this look and sits with him and persuades him to at least eat an apple or something before the day starts properly.

"Why do you do this?" he asks at one point, pushing his coffee away even though he got next to no sleep and his hands are still shaking slightly from the nightmares.

Percy looks confused for a moment, then glances back at Annabeth and shrugs. "I talk to Annabeth," he says. "Annabeth talks to me. I don't know, it's just... sometimes you need to talk to someone who knows what you're talking about."

Nico's about to argue, because honestly, he's gotten by for like fifteen years without really doing that sort of thing, and he's horrified when he opens his mouth and finds tears in his eyes. He can taste smoke and blood in his mouth, and there's a prickling sound in his ears, and Percy's nodding.

"What was it?" he asks gently, and Nico just shakes his head and tries not to close his eyes, so Percy hugs him instead.

And then Will notices them and gets worried and joins in, talking about nutritional values and sleep cycles and _Nico are you sure you're okay?_ And Nico kind of shrugs and says he's doing fine.

* * *

Then you have Jason, and when it's his turn, he's normally having one of his overly responsible moments, the sort where he seems to think he's Nico's therapist and keeps pushing his glasses around on his nose while asking him if he's doing okay.

"I'm fine, Jason," Nico always says, in that exasperated tone he uses when he's trying not to show that he's actually kind of touched. "Really." He's also halfway up the climbing wall, so he could do without the distraction (because Jason always seems to forget than only one of them can fly), but he's touched all the same.

"Are you sure?" Jason says, lava glinting off his glasses. "You've been looking pretty tired, lately. Have you been sleeping okay?"

Nico hesitates, edging a little further up the wall as he tries to come up with an answer that won't result in a full-on counselling session. "I've been sleeping better," he says eventually, which is true. Anything's better than twelve-hour nightmares. He gives Jason a suspicious look. "Have you been talking to Will again?"

Will worries too much, and Jason has some idea that he's Nico's primary carer and guardian, which is ridiculous, because a) even Nico isn't sure who that is at this stage, and b) it definitely isn't Jason, because he's seventeen.

"Maybe," Jason admits. "Just checking up on you. Making sure you're okay. That sort of thing."

"Piper's waving at you," Nico replies, a bad attempt at covering up the fact that he has no idea how to respond to something like that.

Jason looks down, blows a kiss at Piper (and Nico can feel the breeze as it passes him) and then turns back to Nico. "You're not used to this, are you?" he says after a minute. "People taking care of you and stuff."

"No, not really," Nico says, trying to ignore the way his fingers are complaining about having to stay clenched around the same little rock ledge for such a long time. "But... I don't know."

"You like it, don't you," Jason guesses, watching his face. "I mean, it's fair enough. Everyone loves being loved. It's just a matter of trusting people enough to let them care." He's being deep again, all blonde hair and grandpa glasses, golden boy in the sunlight.

Nico shrugs. "It's way too hot for the climbing wall," he says flippantly, wondering if his shoes have melted into the stone yet. He looks behind him. The view from the climbing wall's pretty good; he can see Will's mop of hair outside the Apollo cabin, Percy and Annabeth sparring in the middle of the common, Frank letting Hazel win at basketball.

"Come on then, Superman," he says, meeting Jason's eyes. "Fly me home."

He lets go of the wall, and there's time for Piper to scream something about melodrama and heatstroke before Jason catches him.

(Piper might be right about the heatstroke, come to think about it; although it's only Jason holding him, there's something in the back of his mind that says it feels like far more people, and though they're heading for the ground, his heart is soaring.)


End file.
